“Good job, thanks a bunch!” the sentry roared, overjoyed, and squatted down in a firm position. “You can shut it off now!”
“Come on, come on, get on with it!” someone encouraged him from the sled. “We’ll give you covering fire, if you need it…”
“Aw, shut off the light, guys!” the sentry begged, getting edgy.
“Don’t shut it off, Mr. Engineer,” a voice from the sled advised. “He’s joking. And the regulations don’t allow—”
But Ellisauer turned the light away after all. Andrei heard jostling and guffawing on the sled. Then two of the men started whistling a duet—some kind of march.
Everything’s just the same as ever, thought Andrei. If anything, they’re more cheerful than usual today. I didn’t hear any of these jokes yesterday or the day before. Maybe it’s the apartment houses? Yes, it could be that. Nothing but desert and more desert, but now there are houses! At least they can catch up on their sleep in peace; the wolves won’t bother them. Only Vogel’s no alarmist. Uh-uh, he’s not that kind… Andrei suddenly imagined himself tomorrow, giving the order to move out, but the men bunch up together, with their automatics bristling out, and say, “We won’t go!” Maybe that’s why they’re so cheerful right now—they’ve settled everything among themselves, already decided to turn back tomorrow (“…what can he do to us, the gutless jerk, the crummy office clerk?”) and now they couldn’t give a damn, they don’t have a care in the world, they don’t give a fuck… And Quejada, the bastard, is with them. He’s been whining for days now that it’s pointless to go any farther… he looks daggers at me during the evening reports… he’d only be delighted if I went creeping back to Heiger empty handed, with my tail between my legs…
Andrei shrugged his shoulders with a shudder. It’s your own fault, you wimp—you dropped the reins, you lousy democrat, you damned populist… You ought to have put that Hnoipek with the ginger hair up against the wall that first time, the slimeball, taken the whole gang by the throat in a single stroke—I’d have them all toeing the line now! And it was just the right opportunity! A gang rape, and a brutal one, and the victim was a native girl, an underage native girl… And the insolent way that Hnoipek grinned—that insolent, sated, loathsome grin—when I yelled at them… and the way they all turned green when I pulled out the revolver. Ah, Colonel, Colonel, you’re a liberal, not a combat officer! “Oh, why start shooting straightaway, Counselor? After all, there are other means of influence!” Uh-uh, Colonel. It’s obvious you can’t influence these Hnoipeks any other way… And after that everything went askew. The girl attached herself to the squad, I shamefully turned a blind eye (out of amazement, was that it?), and then the squabbling and brawling over her began… And again I should have interfered in the first fight, put someone up against the wall, had the girl flogged and slung her out of the camp… Only where could we sling her out to? We were already in the burned-out districts, there was no water there, the wolves had appeared…
Down in the street someone started furiously growling and swearing, something fell over and started clattering around, and a completely naked monkey came flying backward out of a doorway into the circle of light, landed smack on his ass, raising a cloud of dust, and before it could even pull up its legs, another monkey pounced like a tiger out of the same doorway, and they went at it tooth and claw, rolling around on the cobblestones, howling and snarling, wheezing and spitting, flailing at each other with all their might.
Andrei gripped the windowsill with one hand and dull-wittedly fumbled at his belt with the other, forgetting that his holster was lying in the armchair, but then Sergeant Vogel emerged from the darkness, swooping down like a sweaty black storm cloud driven by a hurricane, and hovering over the miscreants. And then he had grabbed one by the hair and the other by the beard, jerked them up off the ground, slammed them against each other with a dry crunch and tossed them away in opposite directions, like puppies.
“Very good, Sergeant!” the colonel’s weak but firm voice declared. “Tie the scoundrels to their beds for the night, and tomorrow put them in the advance guard out of turn for the whole day.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Colonel,” the sergeant replied, breathing heavily. He glanced to the right, where a naked monkey was scrabbling at the cobblestones, struggling to get up, and added uncertainly, “If I might make bold to report, Colonel, one isn’t ours. The cartographer Roulier.”
Andrei shook his head with a jerk, clearing a space in his throat, and roared in an unnatural voice. “Put cartographer Roulier in the advance guard for three days, with full combat gear. If the fight is repeated, shoot both of them on the spot!” Something cracked painfully in his throat. “Shoot all miscreants who dare to fight on the spot!” he croaked.
When he recovered his self-control, he was already seated at the table. Too late, probably, he thought, examining his dirty, trembling fingers. Too late. I should have acted sooner… But you’ll toe that line for me! You’ll do what you’re ordered to do! I’ll order half of you to be shot… I’ll shoot you myself… but the other half will toe the line for me. No more… No more! And Hnoipek gets the first bullet, whatever the circumstances. The first!
He rummaged behind his back, pulled out his holster and belt, and took out the pistol. The barrel was packed with dirt. He pulled back the bolt. It moved sluggishly, pulling back halfway and jamming in that position. Dammit, everything’s jammed, everything’s filthy… Outside the window it was quiet, with only the steel tips of the sentries’ boots clicking on the cobblestones in the distance, and someone blowing his nose on the ground floor and droning loudly through his teeth.
Andrei walked to the door and glanced out into the corridor. “Duggan!” he called in a low voice.
Something stirred in the corner. Andrei started and looked that way: it was the Mute. He was sitting in his usual pose, with his legs crossed over each other and interwoven in some highly complex fashion. His eyes glinted moistly in the semidarkness.
“Duggan!” Andrei called more loudly.
“Coming, sir!” a voice answered from somewhere deep inside the building. He heard footsteps.
“Why are you sitting here?” Andrei asked the Mute. “Come into the room.”
Without stirring from the spot, the Mute raised his broad face and looked at him.
Andrei went back to the table, and when Duggan knocked and glanced into the room, Andrei told him, “Clean up my pistol, please.”
“Yes, sir,” Duggan said respectfully, and took the pistol. At the door he moved aside to let Izya into the room.
“Aha, a lamp!” said Izya, heading straight for the table. “Listen, Andrei, have you got another lamp like that? I’m sick of using a flashlight—my eyes hurt…”
Izya had lost a load of weight over the last few days. All his clothes hung loose; everything on him was torn. And he stank like an old goat. But then, everyone stank that way. Apart from the colonel.
Andrei watched as Izya, taking no notice of anything, pulled over a chair, sat down, and moved the lamp across toward himself. Then he started taking old, crumpled papers out from under his jacket and laying them out in front of him. As he did this, he bobbed up and down on his chair in his habitual fashion, peering at the papers as if he were rifling through them, as if he were trying to read them all at once, and every now and then plucking at his wart. It was hard for him to get to the wart now, because his cheeks and neck and even, seemingly, his ears, were covered with an immensely thick coating of hair.